You can use polls, surveys, and white-paper to bring attention to yourself and your industry. It is a great way to raise community awareness that you exist without overdoing it. For example, if you are in the supermarket industry you might use something like this:

Supermarkets are having trouble with shoppers smuggling raw meat out of stores in their pants and hiding detergent between their legs. Those were some of the findings in a survey of 200 supermarket general managers across the U.S. by The 100 Percent Recycled Paperboard Alliance. The survey results included lots of other interesting findings. For example, it found that some supermarkets have a problem with customers who fist-fight cashiers, propose on bended knee to grocery checkers and drive motorcycles through the stores. The survey had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with recycled paperboard. But the story was picked up by the Scripps Howard News Service and printed in newspapers throughout the country, thus drawing attention to the trade group.

To learn the many valuable ways to use polls and surveys as a form of free publicity see Special Report 19, "How to Use Polls, Surveys and White Papers That Brand You as an Expert"